One of the interesting developments of the past few years has been the use of IRC by the Mac admin community to get more of us “together” in the same place to ask questions and get help from each other. For me, it’s been an invaluable resources in solving problems as many pairs of eyes can look at a particular issue and arrive at a solution (or even multiple solutions.)

For those interested in joining the conversation, here are the two IRC channels on Freenode that you’re most likely to find me in:

This switch was a problem for Mac admins who wanted to deploy Sophos Enterprise Anti-Virus 9.2.x, as the previously-available installer package had simplified the task of deployment. The new Sophos Enterprise Anti-Virus 9.2.x install application added further complexity by storing many of the installer’s files and other components outside the application in a separate Sophos Installer Components directory.

However, after doing some research and testing, it looks like it is possible to repackage Sophos Enterprise 9.2.x for deployment. For more details, see below the jump.

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The January 2015 MacDMV meeting on Saturday, January 24th was quite the event, between having to move from our planned meeting place due to a fire and figuring out the best way to give Keynote presentations while gathered around a table at the Silver Diner for an impromptu brunch. All obstacles were overcome though, and I was able to collaborate with Jennifer Unger on a talk about AutoPkg.

For those who want a copy of the AutoPkg talk, here are links to the slides in PDF and Keynote format:

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Oracle has released a new update for Java 8, but this update has an interesting wrinkle. Oracle has put out a new build of Java 8, but didn’t bump the version number from Java 8 Update 31. So folks who had previously installed Java 8 Update 31 may receive a message to update to Java 8 Update 31 from their current version, which will also be Java 8 Update 31.

There’s no information available on why the change was made. My speculation is that Oracle decided that updating the Sparkle feed for Java 8 Update 31 so that it was no longer providing Java 8 Update 31 build 15 as an update for Java 8 Update 31 build 13 was the best way to help avoid future confusion over updates for Java 8 Update 31.

It looks like 1.8.31.15 (aka Java 8 Update 31 build 15) is still the version being provided through the Java download site:

In the past couple of weeks, Apple has released new versions of a number of updates, which are now available for download by folks running Apple’s Software Update service or third-party tools like Reposado. Most of these updates were for older OSs where Apple has since stopped providing new updates. When these updates were checked, there didn’t seem to be any difference between the “old” and “new” versions of the installers.

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A number of Mac admins need to provide the Xcode Command Line Tools for the Macs in their environments, either as part of building machines or afterwards. To help with this task, I’ve developed a script that will download and install the Xcode Command Line Tools on Macs running 10.7.x and higher. See below the jump for more details.